BELLEFONTE -- Opening statements were made today in former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's child sexual assault trial.

Sandusky, 68, is charged with 52 criminal counts of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years, allegations he has denied. His trial started this morning after the judge denied several requests from Sandusky's attorney for a delay or dismissal of at least some charges.

The Second Mile is not on trial, prosecutor Joseph E. McGettigan said in his opening arguments to jurors in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case this morning.

Neither is Penn State University, he said.

It is Sandusky -- who sat in a wrinkled green suit and turned his chair and faced a 12-foot projection screen as McGettigan showed pictures of each of his accusers as boys.

One juror shook her head as the prosecutor explained the abuse that each allegedly endured.

All 16 -- 12 jurors and four alternates -- were listening intently, wide-eyed, as McGettigan and defense attorney Joe Amendola made their opening arguments in the historic child sex abuse case against the 68-year-old football great.

Sandusky’s wife, Dottie, and adopted son Matt, both left right before opening arguments when the judge ordered that all witnesses be sequestered.

Almost flush up to the jury box, and in a soft-spoken voice, McGettigan did a rundown of the 10 cases against Sandusky, calling it the “systematic behavior ... of a serial predatory pedophile.”

The young men who will testify are from all walks of life, he said. One is a father himself. Two are recent high school graduates.

One struggles with drug and alcohol dependency.

Another serves in the military.

Three of them were in foster care as children.

Two were allegedly abused only once, McGettigan explained.

“Stopped in one instance by a vigilant mother, and in another by the extreme reaction of the child himself,” he told jurors.

Many of the allegations of abuse happened on Penn State’s campus.

Most of the accusers met Sandusky though his charity, The Second Mile.

There are even asterisks on Second Mile lists with these children’s names, McGettigan said.

Jurors will hear Sandusky’s own words: From 1998 when he was interviewed by police, and from 2008, when he allegedly told CYS officer that he would sleep in the same bed with and lay with Victim One, kiss his cheeks and forehead and couldn’t remember if he kissed him on the lips, McGettigan said.

Bob Costas’ interview with Sandusky after his arrest will also be played for jurors, McGettigan said.

During his arguments, McGettigan outlined the course of the investigation.

It started with alleged Victim One -- a 14-year-old Clinton County teen who told authorities that his mentor had become sexually abusive, McGettigan said.

The relationship escalated even more to stalking, McGettigan said. Sandusky would take Victim One out of school, “which he was able to do because of who he was,” McGettigan said.

And when he came forward, school authorities discouraged him, McGettigan said. But his mother went to officials anyway, and investigators made the initial decision not to make an immediate arrest.

Why?

“Because law enforcement immediately doubted a man in his 50s sexually abused just one boy,” McGettigan said.

Next, police knocked on the door of Mike McQueary, after hearing rumors that the assistant coach had witnessed something in a locker room shower in 2001.

When investigators went looking for any record of what McQueary reported, they stumbled on a 1998 Penn State police report that showed a third allegations. The boy known now as Victim 6 told his mother he was bear-hugged while naked in a shower.

No arrest was made at the time, but police re-interviewed the boy and his mother.

From there, police found documents, photographs, and identified the remaining defendants.

They began to ask Penn State employees about rumors, since many of the allegations happened on campus, and that’s how they found the case of Victim 8, where a janitor told his colleagues he saw Sandusky performing oral sex on a young boy in 2000.

There were four missed opportunities, McGettigan said.

The 1998 investigation.

McQueary.

The janitors.

And an instance at Victim 1‘s high school, Central Mountain, when a wrestling coach saw Sandusky and the teen face-to-face on a mat late at night.

Victim 1 will be the second to take the stand, McGettigan said.

First, will be Victim 4, who alleges similar abuse but several years prior. He will tell a compelling story about how he was forced to perform oral sex on Sandusky in a hotel room shower during a bowl game trip, McGettigan said.

Dottie Sandusky walked into hotel room during that act, but not into the bathroom, McGettigan said. When Victim 4 hesitated, Sandusky asked him if he wanted to go home, McGettigan said.

That accuser will testify about “Second Mile contracts,” that forced him to spend unsupervised time with Sandusky in exchange for money.

Charity officials will say that no such contract should have existed, McGettigan said.

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